At the Rink: Devils at Red Wings

DETROIT – Forward Patrik Elias won't be in the lineup when the New Jersey Devils (16-13-5) play the Detroit Red Wings (17-9-7) on Tuesday at Joe Louis Arena (7:30 p.m., MSG+, FS-D+) because of a knee injury.

Elias missed the start of the season because of a knee injury and made his season debut on Nov. 25. He has a goal and four assists in 13 games and was a healthy scratch in a 2-1 shootout loss at the Boston Bruins on Sunday.

"It has nothing to do with what was bothering me before," Elias said. "Whatever my issue was before, it's not the same today. This is more muscle related. So I don't know if it was from the skate (on Monday) or the night before when I didn't play.”

Devils coach John Hynes said it wasn't known how long Elias would be out.

"We're not sure yet," Hynes said. "It wasn't like it was one thing."

Detroit will be without defenseman Jonathan Ericsson for a second consecutive game because of a shoulder injury. Jakub Kindl will again take Ericsson's place in the lineup.

The Red Wings will go with two new defense pairings on Tuesday. Niklas Kronwall will be paired with Danny DeKeyser and Brendan Smith will skate with Mike Green. Kindl will play with Alexey Marchenko on the third pair.

Green and Smith play high risk games because they like to jump into the rush and make plays. Smith will defer to Green, who has more experience and is proven.

"I've been watching him pretty closely so there's some things I'm going to have to do, maybe be a little more safe because he likes to get up there and he's really good at it," Smith said. "So I think you'll see a little bit more of a defensive game out of me because of the situation, and it makes sense."

Here are the projected lineups:

DEVILS

Michael Cammalleri - Adam Henrique - Lee Stempniak

Jiri Tlusty - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri

Sergey Kalinin - Jacob Josefson - Tyler Kennedy

Tuomo Ruutu - Stephen Gionta - Jordin Tootoo

Andy Greene - Adam Larsson

John Moore - Damon Severson

Jon Merrill - David Schlemko

Cory Schneider

Keith Kinkaid

Injured: Patrik Elias (knee), Ryan Clowe (concussion), Bobby Farnham (shoulder)

Scratched: Eric Gelinas

RED WINGS

Dylan Larkin - Henrik Zetterberg - Justin Abdelkader

Darren Helm - Pavel Datsyuk - Brad Richards

Gustav Nyquist - Riley Sheahan - Tomas Tatar

Tomas Jurco - Luke Glendening - Joakim Andersson

Niklas Kronwall - Danny DeKeyser

Brendan Smith - Mike Green

Jakub Kindl - Alexey Marchenko

Jimmy Howard

Petr Mrazek

Injured: Jonathan Ericsson (shoulder), Drew Miller (broken jaw), Teemu Pulkkinen (dislocated shoulder), Johan Franzen (concussion), Kyle Quincey (ankle)

Scratched: Tomas Nosek, Xavier Ouellet

Status report: Merrill replaces Gelinas, who played Sunday at Boston, in the lineup for the Devils.

Who's hot: Zetterberg has two goals and four assists in his past seven games.